‘I grabbed my six-year-old and we were all screaming and praying for God’s grace. I saw our walls falling down, then we ran out.’ Dalia’s tears began to slip down her cheeks as she re-lived the terrifying morning of 15 October 2013. The 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck the Philippines island of Bohol.
‘We stayed in an evacuation centre for two, almost three weeks, then in a tent. When we went back to check the church we found it destroyed. We still sleep in the tent but we’ve put it inside a small bamboo hut that we built during the rains. When people ask me, ‘how can you smile?’ I say I smile because I am alive! That’s something to thank God for.’
The oval-shaped island of Bohol lies in the centre of the Philippines. It is the country’s tenth largest island and a popular tourist destination, sometimes called the jewel of the Philippines because of its gently rolling hills and white sand beaches.
Shattered Lives
The quake that came just after eight that morning shattered the lives of over a million people. Eighty thousand homes and other buildings were destroyed, including churches. Dalia’s husband Renato Carnice is the pastor of Abundant Life Church in Sagbayan, very near the earthquake epicentre.
‘We held our first Sunday service under the mango tree on the church property,’ she said. ‘When our OM friends visited and asked what we needed the most, I said we needed a roof for the church! We have a tarpaulin over the foundation, but it is quite uncomfortable under the sun.’
This church is one of the first three that OM is making plans to rebuild. The Abundant Life Assembly of God Church was also reduced to ruins at the quake’s epicentre. Pastor Hilario Celis recalls, ‘I went out of the house and tried to hold onto a tree. I heard my wife screaming my name. When I saw the church, I cried. The roof and walls, our sound system and musical instruments – all was destroyed.’
Three weeks later super-typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) blew in. Although the storm’s eye missed Bohol it sent some 40,000 residents still living in temporary shelters back to evacuation centres, including this pastor’s family. Shortly after that Pastor Celis’s wife passed away from breast cancer, leaving him with two children to raise on his own.
While the typhoon captured world attention, the earthquake-struck area was largely forgotten. Relief efforts in Bohol slowed as NGOs flocked to care for typhoon victims on other islands. As a result, most of the 367,760 people whose homes were damaged or destroyed are still living in broken houses, or in tents.
Crisis management
A relief partner of OM has conducted two crisis management courses for church leaders, and by God’s amazing grace one of them ‘happened’ to take place just days before the earthquake. Pastor Jun Tubo in Bohol began immediately to use his training, organising people and churches to give emergency aid. In fact, his name badge from the course was enough to give him credibility to liaise with aid agencies on the ground!
More than rebuilding houses and church buildings, OM is most concerned with rebuilding lives. The mission was the only organisation to sponsor a trauma counselling workshop by a church in Singapore, which gathered local Christians under the tarp at the Abundant Life Church. Afterwards participants put their learning to use in a tent village where 18 families were housed following the destruction of their homes and ongoing danger of mud slides.
‘When we did the debriefing with these people they cried,’ related Dalia, ‘and we cried with them.’
Several victims expressed their gratitude to the team, saying that the counselling had helped to release their pain. On the churches’ side, pastors say that their members now have a greater vision for evangelism.
Christmas
OM helped to brighten what would have otherwise been a miserable Christmas for displaced islanders, distributing hundreds of special food packs and holding Christmas parties in a number of communities. ‘People who received baskets of food are now attending churches,’ affirmed Pastor Tubo’s wife, Eldred. ‘It opened their hearts.’
OM also hosted business skill workshops in Cebu and Manila by another partner organisation, Epic Solutions, with the goal of assisting both Christians and non-Christians who need to find new ways to create sustainable income. And since most of the pastors on Bohol support themselves by farming, OM has also used some relief funds to buy three rice field ploughs which take the place of laborious hand-ploughing. Farmers are more than happy to pay a small rental fee that covers fuel, manpower and maintenance after they sell their harvests.
Thousands of aftershocks have shaken the island of Bohol in the months since the first earth-shaking moment. But the shock for many residents who have lost homes or loved ones will never go away.
